I am currious as to why the books that are considered to be or known as deuterocanical are included in our Catholic Old Testament but not included in the Jewish Holy Scriptures. I was always under the impression that our Old Testament and the Jewish Holy Scriptures were essentially the same.

Thanks

Answer by Fr. John Echert on 10/8/2008:

The fullest form of the Old Testament as approved by the Catholic Church reflects the canon (list) of the Old Testament as read and accepted by the Jews who used some writings which were not Hebrew in their language. More rigorous Jews (which does not mean correct necessary) restricted the canon to Hebrew language writings only and thereby rejected several works of the Old Testament and the whole of the New Testament, which was written in Greek.